The Woods After
by PolandSpringz
Summary: A short one-shot that takes place after the Dan beat the haze.


An icy winter gust overtook the room forcing a young woman to shiver on the couch. She bundled herself up in a long burgundy cardigan as she whispered to her son from across the room to shut the window. Most children in this modern age despised the outside and stay inside every second they could. _He gets his love for the outside from his father,_ the woman thought to herself as she fumbled around trying to remove her hands from the cardigans long sleeves as her son snuggled up beside her on the couch after shutting the window. The cottage was small, but it was cozy during the winter months. She put her arm around the boy as he lay down beside the woman. She took a blanket of the back of the couch and spread it over the boy before returning to her original position and extended one hand towards the handle of a small teacup. She slowly placed it towards her lips and set it down back on the saucer. The herbal tea's aroma mixed with the smell of the burning cherry wood in the old fashioned fireplace. The woman got up from her seat and went towards her oak wood bookcase. She scanned the spines of the books with one hand while the other hand was balled up beneath her chin. Her pale finger stopped on a pale blue spine and it gently traced the golden binding on the edges before it curled around the top of the book and pulled it out slowly. She brought it over to the small wooden chair at the table next to the window. She ignored the colder air that whipped around her when she left the area near the fire for her mind was now engulfed with the thought of the book.

Many years ago, someone read it to her grandmother. Her grandmother read it to her mother. Her mother read it to her. And then the boy read it to her. _Everyone has had someone read it to them and then they read it on their own. Everyone has read the stories, including me. Sometimes I wonder where those stories come from. _The woman thought to herself quietly as her fingers unconsciously traced the pale blue cover that was trimmed at the edges with solid gold vines with a rose in the middle. She gently flipped open to the back of the book where blank pages sat staring back at her. A pen had written the words, _Mary's Chapter_**, **in a beautiful cursive with a small daisy beside it which had been pressed into the book for many years. Mary flipped through the blank pages slowly, examining each one carefully before she turned to the next. When she reached the final page, she lifted up an old pen that sat on the oak table. She flipped back to the daisy pressed page and crossed out the previous writing and scrawled out the words, _The Dan's Final Chapter. _Then she began to write.

The raven-haired man rubbed his hands together as he reached the door of the small cottage. He had had an exhausting day of having to run from job to job, and eventually deal with the rest of the Dan during a meeting. It had surprised everyone in how even after they beat the daze the Dan couldn't seem to separate. They had all walked out the door, as if they had lost something, but they returned days later, as though they were blindfolded by the feelings they had shared.

The man turned the doorknob to the cottage, _No reason to knock these days_, he thought to himself as he stepped into the small, dimly lit house. He glanced over from the doorway as he removed his shoes. His son was all bundled up and asleep on the couch, and his wife had passed out while reading a book. Her head was resting against the windowsill and she had tied her cream colored hair up in a bun, with a couple of stray strands dangling while others looped back up to the bun.

The black-haired man smiled as he walked over to where his child was first and gingerly picked him up and carried him upstairs. When the man returned he put out the fire, engulfing the cottage in a dark bluish glow from the outside. He paused for a moment to smile before shuffling over to his wife. He then tentatively touched her cold pale hand as he knelt down beside her chair. His other hand reached up towards her pale face and brushed the hair that dangled in front of her cheek. The woman lifted her eyelids gradually; she tilted her head to the side a bit as she removed it from the sill. Her pale red eyes shifted to the side ad caught glimpse of the man. She smiled down at him as he placed his lips against her pale hand. Her husband helped her up slowly and the two stood, holding each other's hands. The man leaned down so their foreheads were touching and the woman giggled slightly before she kissed him. Then the two let go of one hand and headed up the staircase.

Written in the pale blue book with the solid gold edges, were the tales of people's pasts, presents, and even futures. The tales that told of how nine children saved one another from the same deadly fates, all because of one monster. The nine children did such heroic acts, and yet, in this being the real world, they went unknown for it. All though the darkness of isolation was no longer pitch black, but it had slowly turned into a blue glow. The children all started out at the bottom of a dark well. No one knew where they were, or why they existed. One day, a person came to the well and talked to the children. The children gradually learned of each other's existence, and when they accepted their fate in the well, they were engulfed in the blue glow of the moon.


End file.
